At a Protest the Pope meeting last week Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, insisted that the Protest the Pope campaign was not anti-Catholic.
He said: "The first thing I want to say is that the Protest the Pope campaign is not anti-Catholic. Some Catholic bloggers have tried to portray us as some kind of off-shoot of the Orange order, but this simply isn’t true.
"Our title is Protest the Pope and that’s what it means – this particular pope, Joseph Ratzinger. It does not mean protest the Catholics. Indeed, many Catholics entirely understand what we are about and have stated their support."
